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Welcome to another edition of Technique Thursday! This week I thought I'd bring back an "oldy but goody" in the way of stamping techniques...Poppin' Pastels! It's a very simple technique, and you can easily achieve an image with many different colors with little effort!!

Here's a quick reminder of how to do the technique:

Stamp your image in Versamark (I didn't take a picture of this step because the Versamark is clear and very tricky to photograph!)...then add your Stampin' Pastels. You do NOT want to rub on the pastels. You simply want to "pounce" the sponge dauber up & down on your image, tapping the pastels lightly onto your image until it is fully coated.

Continue to add color until your image is completely covered with pastels. There will be some pastel "dust" remaining, which you can blow off, and if there is a haze of pastels around your image, you can either use the pastel eraser that's included in your set, or I've found that a Swiffer pad works really well too!

Here is the finished sample using the Poppin' Pastels technique...the colors of pastels I used were Old Olive, Not Quite Navy & Night of Navy:

Here's another sample...for this one I used Bashful Blue & Night of Navy pastels. I also did a two-toned effect on the sentiment by adding the Bashful Blue to the tops of the letters and the Night of Navy to the bottoms. For the dark blue edge, I rubbed the Versamark pad along the torn edge, then applied the Night of Navy pastel with a sponge dauber. Then I added 2-way glue and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.Stamp Sets: Northern Hearts (hostess), Curly Cute

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Good morning stampers!You may have noticed a few new features here of late and we hope you are enjoying all the extra opportunities to put your creativity to work. Another new, monthly feature will showcase Clean and Simple Stamping - a style that many have embraced not only for it's elegance, but for it's ease! One thing is true, Clean and Simple does not mean boring and sometimes it's actually a challenge to KEEP it Clean and Simple. Most of us are natural 'embellishers' so it's great to apply the principle of less is more once in a while in our art.

Today's card is not only Clean and Simple, but it shows non-traditional Christmas colors, something that I personally struggle with and I'm sure some of you do as well. It's hard to get the idea of what Christmas should look like to you personally out of your head when designing a project, but it's great for us to break out of our box sometimes.

You'll notice that for each layer, I simply cut the cardstock 1/4" smaller so that when it's layered, it provides a mat of 1/8" all around. These are great guidelines for any stamper to follow, especially if you are a novice. This 1/4" variance will become your standard over time and is easy to apply to any size of stacked layers.Also, if you need to create multiple cards, a two color mixture and this layout are perfect for making the most of your cardstock. With just 3 pieces of 8 1/2" x 11" Whisper White and 1 piece of 8 1/2" x 11 Concord Crush, you can create 4 cards.

Now, let's get stampin'!Using Pear Pizazz ink and the branch stamp from A Cardinal Christmas stamp set, I inked the stamp and stamped it multiple times on the top layer of White cardstock in the upper left corner. I re-inked the stamp between each impression for this project.

Next, I inked the greeting from Many Merry Messages in Concord Crush ink and added it across the bottom of the White cardstock.At this point, I adhered my layers together with SNAIL Adhesive.

To create the ornament focal point, I first cut a strip of Whisper White cardstock at 2" x 11". Next, I chose my image from the Delightful Decorations stamp set and inked it up with Concord Crush ink. After stamping on the strip of White cardstock, I used my Ornament Punch to punch it out cleanly. Quick tip: I always stamp my image first, then punch it out. When you hold the punch with the punch window showing up, it is super easy to line up the image creating an almost perfectly punched image every time!

This ornament was dressed up a bit by punching a small hole in the center (I used my Paper Piercer) and adding a Rhinestone Circle Ice Brad to it. It was then easily attached to the card front with two Stampin' Dimensionals. You could also add Dazzling Diamonds Glitter with a 2 Way Glue Pen or the new Rhinestone Jewels if you don't have the Rhinestone Brads.

Once the ornament was adhered to the card front, I took a 5" piece of Whisper White 5/8" Satin Ribbon and tied it in a simple, single knot. The ends were trimmed with my Paper and Craft Scissors (which NEVER see paper in my studio - only ribbon and cloth so they don't dull).After adding two Mini-Glue Dots to the center knot, I adhered it to the card front, just above the ornament, creating the look of it hanging from the tree.

This last photo shows just a peek at the inside of the card - I simply added a touch of the branch image to the lower right corner to give it a little color there. This is also a great way to dress up the envelope front as well!

So, there you go - a Clean and Simple project that's neither boring nor traditional!If you wanted to, this card would be easy to step up by adding embossing - either heat or dry, glitter, more cardstock layers, a punched border - really, the sky is the limit! But really, isn't it nice to see that you can have something lovely without having to use all the tools in your toolbox? This project took less than 10 minutes to create from cutting to finish - and that's something we ALL can appreciate!We at Stamping 411 hope you will enjoy this new monthly feature and will share your Clean and Simple projects with us as well! Be sure to leave a link in your comments here and show us your stuff!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Hello everyone and welcome to a new Saturday Sketch Challenge from the Stamping 411 Operators. We hope you will have fun with this one and invite you to play along by leaving your link on the Linking Tool at the bottom of this post.

Here's one possible set of measurements for this sketch, provided by Selene.

Base: Pumpkin Pie 11 x 4 1/4", scored and folded in half at 5 1/2"

Layer 2: Razzleberry 5 1/8" x 3 7/8" (1/8" larger than

Layer 3 on two sides)Layer 3: Black 5 x 3 3/4"

Layer 4: Razzleberry striped DSP (from the patterns pack) 5 x 1 7/8"

Layer 5: 2 7/8" x 3 7/8", Pumpkin Pie

Layer 6: 2 3/4" x 3 3/4" Very Vanilla

Remember, if you need help with measuring, you can refer to THIS POST on how to read a ruler, written by our own Lee Conrey!

Okay ... are you ready to be inspired? Here are the Stamping 411 Operator Cards this week. Click on their name to read more about their card on their own blogs.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I am a total pink girl! When Stampin' Up! announced the return of Pink Pirouette (my favorite pink cardstock color EVER), I seriously was doing the happy dance!!! It's such a dreamy pink......like the color of cotton candy! Yummy!

Now, pink looks incredible with browns, but I use brown a lot. I thought we would work with the classic combination of Pink Pirouette, Basic Black and Whisper White.

My color challenge card came from my Just Cards class. I wanted to show my stampers how just a touch of watercoloring can make a big difference on an otherwise simple card.

Friday, September 17, 2010

I had some technical difficulties with firefox tonight so this is a little later than usual. I hope this cool sketch will make up for all of that. :D I'm going to keep it brief since the PC is working.

To keep it simple I clipped these measurements from operator Gretchen's blog.

Layer One -- Real Red Cardstock cut at 5.5 x 8.5", scored and folded to make the Card Base.

Layer Five -- DSP cut at 4 x 2". Apply to embossed layer with SNAIL adhesive -- arrange the eyelet punched pieces beside the DSP and apply ribbon over the "seam" attaching to the back with SNAIL.

Layer Six -- Stamp the sentiment (from Perfect Punches) on Whisper White cardstock scrap and punch out with the Wide Oval Punch. Apply to tag die cut with SNAIL and attach to card with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Does the thought of cutting your card stock using measurements baffle you? Well, you can check out the most awesome post on how to read a ruler written by the very lovely and talented Lee Conrey, by clicking here.

As with EVERY week, if you need to change it up, do so! You just want to use this sketch as a jumping off point for your design then let your imagination do the rest!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Welcome to another edition of Technique Thursday! I'm super excited to share this technique with you, it's called Diamond Dust and it's been a favorite of mine for years because it includes one of my favorite things, glitter! It's very easy to do, and of course adding glitter to anything makes it better, so why not add lots of glitter to the whole image?!?! Here we go...

Stamp image as desired, for this one I used Serene Snowflakes with Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo & Basic Gray ink:

Apply Versamark to the entire image, by laying your stamped image on Grid Paper and blotting Versamark all over it:

Next, cover the entire image with Heat & Stick Powder:

Once you've got the entire image covered in Heat & Stick powder, use your Heat Tool to "melt" the powder until your image looks like this: